


When the War is Over

by thanks_google



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Flashbacks, Hurt Klaus Hargreeves, Klaus Hargreeves Has PTSD, Klaus Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Multi, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sad Klaus Hargreeves, Sick Klaus Hargreeves, Sober Klaus Hargreeves, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Veteran Klaus Hargreeves, no ben... ben's gone
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:47:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27249787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thanks_google/pseuds/thanks_google
Summary: A war was to be expected, inevitable, even. The countries were arguing as children would at a dinner table. But alas, when a war was announced, everyone’s expectations seemed to be returned to dust.The United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland deployed forces all across the United States. Russian and Italian soldiers were deployed in Mexico and Southern America as a counterattack. Both sides fight restlessly, using the States as a battleground.OR Another war breaks out and the Hargreeves are there to help, but it's quite a lot for Klaus to handle. The mansion is turned into a makeshift hospital, which the siblings all help out with, but the constant smell of napalm left over from Vietnam, and the continuous gunfire, planes and shells everywhere, is not fun for Klaus.
Relationships: Klaus Hargreeves & David "Dave" Katz, Klaus Hargreeves & Everyone
Comments: 2
Kudos: 44





	1. Chapter One

A war was to be expected, inevitable, even. The countries were arguing as children would at a dinner table. But alas, when a war was announced, everyone’s expectations seemed to be returned to dust. 

The United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland deployed forces all across the United States. Russian and Italian soldiers were deployed in Mexico and Southern America as a counterattack. Both sides fight restlessly, using the States as a battleground. 

Three months, this war had been going on, and the Hargreeves were beginning to adjust. Their mansion was being used as a makeshift hospital, most of the downstairs rooms being taken as hospital rooms. The Hargreeves had made all the guest rooms into suits for the nurses and doctors working there. Grace worked tirelessly in the kitchen to make food for everyone, and the siblings often helped. 

The infirmary itself was being used as a surgery room, as it was already full of equipment, and easier to clean than the living rooms. 

The Hargreeves themselves decided against being soldiers themselves, instead agreeing that if a battle was hard enough, that Five would teleport them to assist. 

With dogfights and bombs all the time, everywhere, Klaus almost always felt sick to his bones. Flashbacks were common, but he always had his family to help him through it. Most nights, he didn’t sleep at all due to the sounds of gunfire and bombs. All the bleeding time. Even when there was silence, Klaus could still hear it, all the time. 

Bombings of civilians was a particular issue in their area because they lived in the city. Everything was common, everything you could imagine in a war, anyway. Nuclear bombs forbidden, the fighting and killing on both sides was exhaustive and devastating already, and it had only been three months. 

5am. Klaus still hadn’t slept. Three nights of continuous gunfire and bombings and dogfights. The sound made him feel sick of the planes, the screeching, it sounded like crying, for three nights and days, he hadn’t slept, or eaten. Dangerous, he knew. He couldn’t risk a relapse, but he was a couple sleepless nights away from taking sleeping pills. 

Klaus stood at his window, looking out on the courtyard. A shell had dropped recently there; only a small one. It cut a hole in the garden, shattering whatever was left of Ben’s statue. The ground was upturned and still almost destroyed. 

The cigarette in his hand took his attention away from the garden, the smoke seemed to point him towards the bed behind him. Mistakenly, Klaus turned around. Laying on the bed was a pile of bodies, waiting to be ghosts, blood seeming to drip onto the ground and attack the carpet as it diffused until he could hear it hit the floor below. He hoped Pogo would stand out of the way as this was where he slept, and he was almost certain he was sleeping tonight. Him and Grace took turns along with the staff at night shifts and day shifts in the ‘hospital’. 

When he clenched his fists into balls of blue, the ghosts seemed to be gone, like they were never there, and it became clear that the blood was only in his head; wasn’t real. Except it was real, he just could not see it. _Of course it’s in your head, Harry. But why should that mean it isn’t real_ (yes that’s Harry Potter). He shook his head to clear it and with shaking hands put out the cigarette on the windowsill. He took a deep breath and slowly walked out of his bedroom. He blinked and before he knew it he was in the kitchen. His brain was working on autopilot as he pulled a glass from one of the cupboards and poured a glass of water. 

Luther, Diego and Allison were in the hospital at the moment, working during the night. So he got out a couple more glasses to bring to them. His hands were shaking as he placed their drinks on a tray and he could hear the glass rattling even over the faint shouting of soldiers in the room adjacent. The shouting got louder and louder until he opened the doors to the infirmary and was met with… everything all at once. 

Breathing through tears, Klaus placed the tray on a nearby table and wandered head down through the beds of soldiers until he found Allison. She looked up from the patient, sat on a chair, bandaging someone, a comforting smile on her face. 

“Hey, Klaus. How you doing?” she asked, eyes looking sympathetically and deeply into his. 

He shook his head slightly, blinking rapidly. “There- There’s water on- on the table.”

“Can you still not sleep?” Klaus again shook his head microscopically. “How long’s it been this time?”

“Th- three nights.” He took a deep breath in and let it out slowly.”

“Klaus, I know you don’t want to take anything, and we support you in that, but maybe it’s time to ask mom for something to help you sleep.” Klaus blinked and a couple of tears fell down his face, so Allison stopped her bandage for a moment and held his hand with both of hers. “Klaus, I know you want to stay sober, and it still will be if you don’t get addicted. I know you don’t want to but maybe it’s for the best.” 

After a moment of silence between the two of them, Klaus gently nodded. Her eyebrows knitted slightly and she smiled empathetically. “Okay, I’ll just finish with this person here, and we’ll go get some.”

“I’ll control the dosage and keep them so you don’t take too many.” He knew what she meant. “I’ll give you a weaker one now so you sleep until the morning. Starting tonight, I’ll give you some to get you through the night,” Allison explained as she pulled a bottle of sleeping pills from a cupboard.” Allison and Klaus both took a deep breath as she passed him a pill. She then pulled him into a hug. “Sleep tight, Klaus. I’ll see you in the morning before I go to sleep.” Klaus nodded and started to make his way back back up to his bedroom. 

He met Vanya, who looked like she was on her way to the bathroom. She looked confused, as it was probably half five by this point. “Hey, Klaus. What are you doing up?” 

“I- I couldn’t sleep. Allison gave me a pill to- to help me sleep.” He looked down at the pill in his hand. 

“Oh, that’s good. Now you can sleep a little better.” She was trying to sound supportive; she could see he wasn’t sure it was a good idea. 

“W- why are you up?”

“I’m just going to brush my teeth; thought I’d have an early start this morning so I can do something with Allison before she goes to bed.”

“Wh- who’s working today?” 

“None of us today and tomorrow; we’ve got people to cover us so we can do something together… Go get some sleep, Klaus. I’ll see you in a bit, okay?”

“Yeah. See you later.” Vanya smiled and continued walking to the bathroom, while Klaus made his way back to his bedroom. Climbing back into his bed, he took the sleeping pill, wiped tears from his face, and shut his eyes. 

He woke up a couple of hours later, which wasn’t enough to make up for the nights of sleep he lost, but it was something. Something better than what he would have had. He felt a little better for it, but the noises of war continued and he could swear he felt the ground under him shake as he made his way downstairs. 

He’d slept through till 2pm, and all the siblings were awake, sitting in the kitchen. They all turned to him with smiles when he walked in and ushered him to his usual place at the table, on the end nearest the door, next to Diego. 

“Did you get some sleep?” Vanya asked from across the table. She was smiling as she took a sip from her coffee. 

“Yeah, I did.” He smiled back at her. He actually smiled. “...D- do we have any… any food?”

Excitedly, Five disappeared from his spot at the table and reappeared in front of the fridge. He opened it and began to look through it. “What sort of thing do you want?” 

“I- I don’t know… something small… Do we have any mashed potatoes?” His voice was quiet; he’d changed since Vietnam. He’d changed since the current war began. 

“Umm…” Five continued to look through the fridge, before grabbing a sachet of powder and smiling. “It is your lucky day!” Klaus stood up to make it but Five held his hand out to stop him. “Don’t worry, I’ll make it for you.” He reluctantly sat back down as Five began to make him the food. 

Allison, sat opposite him, leaned across the table and snapped him out of a trance he didn’t know he was in. “You feeling any better?” she asked, a hopeful smile on her face. Klaus nodded slightly. 

“What you doing today?” he asked quietly, his voice shaking. He was aware all eyes were on him and he wanted to change the subject. 

“We thought we’d have a movie afternoon, evening. The basement is soundproof so we can get some peace and quiet.” Vanya smiled. They were all smiling. It was weird. “We could watch a rom com, or a comedy.”

“I- Is there a tv down there?” 

“No,” Allison answered. “But, I have a projector we can use.” Five came over with a bowl of mashed potato. 

“You don’t have to eat it all, just whatever you feel like.” He knew Five was trying to be nice, supportive, so he ignored the fact it sounded a little patronising. 

“Th- thank you, F- Five.” He tried to ignore the way his voice shook when he spoke. “Sh- shall we go? I- I can bring this with me.” Everyone started to stand up, and they made their way to the basement. They all brought their teas and coffees, and Klaus had his food. 

Silence. There were no ghosts down here, either. Soundproof, so they couldn’t hear the guns and the shells and the planes. Klaus and the rest of them collapsed on the sofas they must have brought down earlier. 

“Klaus, it’s up to you, what do you want to watch?” Diego asked this time. 

Klaus knew how much it would pain his Diego and Luther to watch a romantic comedy, which is why he said, “Love Actually!” 

“That’s a Christmas film, Klaus,” Five groaned, then giggled. 

“Yes, but it’s a very good one. And it has Hugh Grant and I loooove Hugh Grant.” 

“Then why don’t we watch Four Weddings and a Funeral, or… Notting Hill?” Luther chirped up, and Klaus let out a laugh that Luther knew both of them. He took note to bring that up in conversation later on. 

“Yes… but Love Actually has… Kiera Knightley, and… Colin Firth, and they’re both amazing.”

“Fine!” Allison shouted, and Klaus can tell she wanted to watch it in the first place. “We’ll watch Love Actually.” 

Klaus fell asleep to the silence ten minutes in, sad he missed some of the film. What was even sadder was how he woke up. 

_The forest around him kept the constant smell of napalm in with the canopy of leaves. It also kept the heat in, making it humid and clammy. BANG. Gunshot. He wasn’t sure where until a spike of pain flooded through his side and he was on the floor. Dave was above him in an instant, eyes wide and worried. “Klaus, it’s okay. It’s okay, stay with me. It’s okay.” He pulled up his shirt and looked at the damage. Not too bad. “It’s okay, just stay awake so we can get to a medic, yeah?” Screeching in his ears that never goes away and pain and red and Dave’s worried eyes and-_

“-aus, wake up!” His eyes shot open and he struggled to breathe, adjusting to his surroundings. His siblings… he was in the Academy. He could still smell napalm, he could still feel the heat against his skin, and there was still a full ache in his side. “Klaus, it’s okay. Breathe, it’s just a dream.” Five? Was that Five? He struggled to understand these days why Five was being so supportive. He was certain Five probably had nightmares, too, so that was probably why. Empathy. 

“Breathe, Klaus, it’s okay.” Vanya’s voice. Calming. “You’re at home. You’re not there anymore. You’re at home, it’s 2020, not 1968. It’s okay, you’re at home.” 

Klaus’ inability to breathe turned into sobbing and Allison pulled him into a hug. “It’s okay, it’s okay.”

“It’s not okay,” he cried quietly. “He’s gone. He’s not coming back.”

“I know, I know it’s hard.”

He calmed down eventually, breathing calmed down too. “Y- you know,” he began. “I can still smell the napalm, always have, ever since.” He said it quietly, and most of the siblings were back watching the Love Actually, which still hadn’t finished. He obviously wasn’t asleep long. 

Five heard him. “Why have you never said anything?” 

“D- Didn’t seem relevant.”

“I’m sorry, Klaus. We’re all so sorry you had to go through that. And I know it’s hard now, but the war will be over eventually.”

“Promise?” 

“Promise.”


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Klaus just cannot take it anymore

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big ass trigger warnings for attempted suicide, and suicidal thoughts

The following morning, Klaus doesn’t feel like eating, but tries anyway, which ends in hunching over the kitchen sink, heaving, Vanya rubbing his back. He’s crying and retching until there isn’t enough of either to carry on. 

Vanya guides him back to the kitchen table, where she sits next to him, rubbing his back. He has his head in his hands, and he’s so fucking tired. 

“I can’t do this anymore, Van.” His voice is weak, and so small. He’s exhausted, stripped of every ounce of energy. 

“I know it’s hard, Klaus, but we’re all here for you and we’ll get-“

“No, I can’t do this anymore.” He’s crying again and she almost is until she stops herself. She needs to be strong for him. She needs to get him through it. “The shouting and shooting and the- and the ghosts and- they’re all shouting and- and I just can’t do it anymore, Van.” His voice manages to get quieter as he talks, until she can barely hear it and wonders if he can over the ghosts. 

Klaus simply cannot hurt himself like this anymore. He knows he isn’t eating, not enough, anyway. He just wants it all to stop. He just wants everything to stop and his ears to stop so he won’t have to keep living like this. 

“Klaus, I know how hard this is, but I promise it will not be forever, and we are all here for you and will not let anything happen to you.” Her voice is soft to calm him down. For a moment it almost works. 

_You know,_ a ghost in front behind. For some reason, it gets his attention. _I know a way to make them stop._

Klaus wasn’t exaggerating when he told Vanya he couldn’t do it anymore. He knows it’s not safe to not sleep, throw up everything he eats, it’s not healthy, he knows. But what other option does he have when he spends half his life in 2020 and the other half in 1968. When he feels closer to death than life.

He just… can’t deal with it anymore. 

He’s in the bath. The water isn’t hot anymore. There’s one of Diego’s knives in his hand, ready to go. Silence. 

Silence. 

It hurts, but it doesn’t matter because in a few moments, everything will be silent. 

His hand stings and he quickly passes the blade to the other hand, repeating the process. The bath turns from a murky grey to a pink to a red.

His vision bounces around the edges, curling in until he lets it overwhelm him with the sudden feeling of peace, tranquility. 

Diego is worried; no one has seen Klaus in a while. He’s sitting at the kitchen table, sipping on a strong coffee. He usually is around, never sleeping, always clinging onto someone or something. He used to find it annoying, at the start of this mess, but he realised it’s more of a comfort thing instead of searching for attention, so he doesn’t really mind it at all. 

He’s thinking, thinking about where Klaus would be. If he thought his brother had the energy to, he’d think he went to some alleyway to get drugs, but he hasn’t left the house in weeks, so he almost eliminates that possibility. Taking a deep breath, he realises it is possible. He stands up to go check, a wave of sadness overcoming him when he realises this could be the end of Klaus’ sobriety. 

Vanya appears in the doorway, looking as if she’s been crying. “Hey, you okay?” he asks, starting to walk towards her. 

“I’m worried about Klaus.” She sounds heartbroken, as if she knows where he’s gone, and it’s bad. As if it’s her fault. 

“Yeah, me too, sis. You got any idea where he might be?” 

“He talked to me earlier, said he couldn’t do it anymore. He was sobbing and so frail.” She stops for a moment. Diego waits for her to continue. “I’m worried he’s done something. Can we check his room?” 

“He’s not in his room, I’ve already checked.” He says that but he’s already walking in the direction of the stairs, and Vanya is following him. For a moment, he stops, and turns to Vanya, who has also stopped. 

“Bathroom?” She asks, almost silently. Their faces both go pale as a sheet, and the trek continues, much faster this time. By the time they reach the door to Klaus’ bathroom, they are sprinting and out of breath. 

Diego tries the door. Locked. 

“Klaus, are you in there? Can you hear me? Can you open the door, please. If you don’t answer I’m going to open it myself. Me and Vanya are out here, we just want to talk.” He pauses, allowing Klaus to answer him. Nothing but silence. “That’s it,” he says to Vanya. “I’m bringing this door down.” 

Vanya nods with tears in her eyes and Diego pushes his whole body weight against the door. Again. Again. After a couple more times, the door falls down in front of them, and they are exposed to the bathroom, the bath. The bath. 

Klaus’ head isn’t visible. His knees are bent just above the water. Diego runs to his side, without a moment of hesitation. He lifts his head out of the water by under his armpits. He’s cold. Too cold. “V- V- V- fuck! Vanya, get his arms out, stop blood flow. I need to get him out. Vanya rushes over and lifts Klaus’ bloody and limp wrists from out of the water. 

Diego promptly pulled Klaus from the bath and dropped him on the tiles on the floor, fumbling desperately for a pulse. His wrists are so bloody he cannot check there, so holds his fingers up to his brother’s neck and waits. 

Faint, but there. 

“Vanya, he’s alive. Quick, go get mom, go get some nurses, bring them here quickly. Very quickly.” Vanya lets go of Klaus’ wrists and Diego quickly takes over, holding the blood in as much as he can. 

Kluas’ eyes flicker slightly and Diego’s heart flutters. “Klaus, Klaus, you’re okay. Vanya’s gone to get help, you’re going to be okay.” Without saying anything, his eyes flutter closed again and stay closed. God, he looks so pale. 

However long later, he doesn’t know, their mom is finally here, with a first aid kit and a solemn look on her face. “Oh, dear, what have you done, darling. Diego, everything’s okay. Go tell your siblings to go to the infirmary and wait for me. I’ll bring your brother down in a moment. Go on, I’m sure everyone is worried.” 

Diego leaves. Grace and the nurses patch him up as much as they can with what they have, stitch him up and put on bandages. He’s not bleeding anymore, but he’s lost a lot of blood. They bring him down to the infirmary, where everyone is waiting. They’re all white as sheets, but not as pale as Klaus. 

Grace instantly puts him on a bed in the hospital. Almost all of them are taken up by soldiers, but she finds one. She links a blood drip, with a bag of blood they’d prepared long before. They thought it was a good idea ever since Allison’s accident, and ever since the war, it became a necessity. 

He’s breathing on his own, a good sign, Grace says. 

“He’s not very well, children, but he’ll be okay. He’ll wake up in a couple of hours. He tore a nerve in his left hand, so there’ll likely be some lasting damage to that, but we won’t know until he wakes up to what extent. He’s going to need all of your support, and that I’m sure you will give him.”

She smiles and leaves, attending to another patient. The siblings are left with their unconscious brother. Diego and Vanya both have blood on their hands, crying. 

“We should have known he was going to do something.” It’s unsurprisingly Five who speaks up. “We should have known.”

“How could we know?” Luther asks. 

“Because he’s had only a couple hours sleep in days, because he doesn’t eat. Because he’s changed, Luther. I was only here a few days before he went to Vietnam and I saw it. He’s been the same his whole life. He’s changed. We should have seen it coming. Even you should be able to see that.”

Luther would argue, but he knows Five’s right.


	3. Chapter Three

Three hours later, Klaus begins to wake up. The world around him feels like water and he can only just about float above the surface of consciousness. He cannot tell why, remember why until he can faintly hear the groaning of ghosts, which, ironically, is what throws him back into the land of the living. He looks up through his eyelashes which make his vision resemble the dark forest through the night. He can imagine Dave close by, can imagine telling him about how he bets some of the trees are still there in 2019, cause that’s how old trees can be. He told him about how old David Attenborough still makes TV shows in the future, how there’s a website called Netflix where you can watch so many things with the click of a button, where you can watch it on your phone or laptop or television. 

There are people around; Klaus can hear them breathing. He thinks he should apologise to them, assure them that it wasn’t them that made him do it, but the constant fear and flashbacks and ghosts in every fucking corner of the mansion. 

“He’s waking up, get mom,” he hears someone whisper. It might be louder than a whisper, but he reduces it to that in his head, telling himself that that’s all they care about him, just a little whisper. There’s fingers curling around his right hand and he in turn squeezes it back, or tries to, at least. 

When he finally brings himself to open his eyes, there are two stand-out figures, sitting either side of his bed. Diego’s asleep, snoring quietly. Vanya is sitting to the right of him, her left hand holding Klaus’ right hand. She’s awake but looks tired. He lolls his head to the side so he can get a proper look at her. None of them have had a proper sleep schedule since the war broke out, since the others started a rota for looking after the wounded soldiers. But this, she looks like she hasn’t slept in quite some time, like she’s been crying. He’s made her feel like that, he notices, so he makes a mental note to apologise later. Apparently Diego’s found a remedy to that situation. 

“Hey, Klaus. How are you feeling?” She’s smiling; not in a way that suggests she’s happy he’s in pain because he can’t have painkillers or he’ll relapse, but in a way that is trying to be sympathetic. He’s thinking about that now, her smile, and realises it probably worked to her intentions, because now he isn’t thinking about… anything else. 

“Mmm…” He can’t tell whether that’s a good thing, can’t really tell whether he’s in pain or not. It doesn’t matter, he needs to apologise to Vanya for making her tired, for making her eyes red and puffy. She needs to be careful after all, with her powers. “‘m sorry, Van…” 

“It’s okay, Klaus. It’s been hard, I know. But we just need to find another way to get you through it, one that’s going to work, yeah?” Her eyebrows are furrowed, like she’s trying to hide her worry with her smile, but has failed. Just like he has. Failed. He’s failed Reginald, failed Ben, failed Dave, failed himself, and now he’s failed Vanya. 

“Five?”

“Five’s making dinner with mom.” Klaus chuckles. “I know, silly thought, isn’t it? Luther and Allison are in the… the living room, with Pogo. There’s a lot of people in, at the moment.”

“‘m sorry, you should… you should be helping them, not me.”

“Nonsense, Klaus. You’re my brother. You’re more important. It’s not your fault, anyway. There’s been a big battle and there’s lots of casualties.” Klaus nods, and they sit in silence, just looking at each other, for a little while. 

“If a soldier from the other side was injured, would you treat them?”

“Maybe, Klaus, maybe. Might cause a riot, though.”

“Mmm.” 

“We’re all here for you, KIaus. You don’t have to go through this alone.” Her sympathetic smile is the last thing he sees before he finally gives in to the exhaustion pulling his eyelids together. 

The next time he wakes up, he keeps his eyes closed to hear what they say. It sounds like Five, he thinks. Hasn’t quite hit puberty yet, so it’s still a little high. “I’ve read a lot of books recently, to find something to help him. They said about noise cancelling headphones working wonders.”

“What if he never takes them off?” Allison’s voice is his best guess. 

“Then we deal with it, and whatever consequences there are of that. It’s better than having him do this because he can’t take it.” There’s anger in Five’s voice, and Klaus feels bad for making him feel bad. “It’s better than this. If it doesn’t work, we’ll try something else, but it’s a start, okay? If we don’t find a way, and fast, he’ll do it again and again until he doesn’t wake up. Do you understand me?” There’s more murmuring that he doesn’t understand over the low grumbling of ghosts, and when he thinks there’s the slightest hint of the conversation moving forward so they don’t know he’s been listening, Klaus peels his eyes open. 

“Hey, Klaus.” Five’s voice has gone soft again, something that has only happened since the first time Klaus confided in him about Vietnam, long after the second apocalypse. “How are you doing?” 

“‘m good. S’rry. Made you angry.”

“Did you hear what we were talking about, just then?”

“Mhm…”

“I’m sorry. I’m not angry with you, of course I’m not. Do you think it’d be a good idea, what I said about?”

“Mm, maybe. Won’t be able to hear the ghosts, either.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“The best thing.” Klaus smiles, but stops when it feels unnatural. It’s been a while since he’s done something so happy as that, but it does make him happy, the thought of everything being quieter. 

“You’re allowed to smile, Klaus.” It’s Luther who says it now, his eyes filled with worry and sympathy. They’ve grown in friendship since coming back to the future. They both appreciate each other more after that happened in the early 60s, have a lot more respect for each other and have found some common interests. “It’s okay to be happy about it.”

Klaus chooses to ignore it, because of course he can’t smile. The only people who make him truly happy are Dave and Ben, and they’re both gone forever. He moves his eyes back to Five, who’s holding something… He wonders what it is, before he remembers, remembers what they’re talking about, why he’s happy. 

“Can I- Can I try them?” He points to the headphones, which Five looks down at in his hand, as if he’d forgotten they were there. 

“Yes, of course.” He walks towards Klaus and holds them just above his ears for a moment so he can hear him. “They can play music, if you want them to. Whether you do or don’t, it’ll make everything else quiet.”

“I won’t be able to hear you.”

“Well, you can take them off sometimes, if that’s what you want. Or we can figure something else out. Okay? And you don’t have to wear them at all, if you don’t like them.” Five smiles, a nice smile, before placing the headphones over Klaus’ ears, and they all watch how he relaxes and softens into the bed instantly, taking slower and more controlled breaths. “Let’s let him sleep, yeah?” The siblings nod and Klaus shuts his eyes, allowing himself to sink into the silence and darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's sort of been a while, but school's shit at the moment having to do it at home and having online lessons. Everything's a bit shit at the moment, but I'll try and update when I can :)


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